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Gun control bill hits brick wall in Senate

A visibly angry President Barack Obama blasted the Senate’s rejection of a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks on gun sales, a vote that essentially ends any hope for major gun control legislation for the time being.

“This was a pretty shameful day for Washington, but this effort is not over,” Obama said in the Rose Garden.

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Obama: 'Shameful day in Washington'

Democrats react to failed gun vote

The vote was 54-46, with only four Republicans crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats in favor of the bipartisan proposal by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Sixty votes were needed.

A wheelchair-bound Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), missing from Capitol Hill for weeks with serious health problems, made an appearance to vote for Manchin-Toomey, adding to the drama of the moment. His colleagues clapped when he appeared on the floor.

Like Obama, Reid and other top Senate Democrats vowed to bring up the proposal again and again until it passes.

“I want everyone to understand — this is just the beginning. This is not the end,” Reid said.

Reid laid into Republicans for their opposition to the background checks proposal.

“The simple fact is that the overwhelming number of Senate Republicans — and that is a gross understatement — are ignoring the voices of 90 percent of the American people,” Reid said. “Today, the brand of the Republican Party has become more out of step, more extreme, and that says a lot.”

Following a round of other gun-related votes on GOP and Democratic amendments, none of which passed, Reid moved to set the underlying gun bill aside and return the Senate to consideration of other issues.

But it was the Manchin-Toomey proposal that became the subject of an intense, often highly emotional lobbying campaign by forces pro and con.

Families of those who were killed in mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., and Virginia Tech lobbied lawmakers in both parties and were present in the Senate gallery.

Gun control supporters in the gallery and the hallway surrounding the chamber — some wearing ribbons and buttons with pictures of loved ones killed in shootings — wept when the results of the Manchin-Toomey vote were announced. From their euphoria last week — when Toomey and 15 other Republicans voted with Democrats to allow the gun debate to begin — to Wednesday’s reality that the bill was defeated proved too much for them.